Room Escape Artist

Have you ever canceled an escape room reservation because you couldn’t find a babysitter? Are you under the impression that escape rooms are only for adults? As parents who have done more than 60 rooms with our children, we’re here to tell you, playing escape rooms with kids can be an absolute blast.

Why kids, parents, and escape rooms can be a great combination

They’re immersive and exciting.

Our kids have come out of rooms raving about how it was like living a video game.

You can touch (almost) everything!

Kids love interactive environments, and escape rooms are full of secrets and surprises to be discovered.

You can win.

And even if you don’t win, those aforementioned secrets and surprises are still really fun to uncover. 

Escape rooms are collaborative rather than competitive.

Kids can be competitive (especially siblings). When everyone is on the same side in an escape room, triumphs and frustrations are shared, and don’t come at anyone’s expense. (As long as no one is grabbing props out of someone else’s hands!)

Kids can feel really powerful when they figure something out.

Our older son still talks about the first time he figured out a puzzle that had stumped his parents! It’s a family in-joke now: an “Apple Orchard Moment”* is our term for a person suddenly cracking open a puzzle everyone has been stuck on.

Many escape room owners are really happy to welcome families!

Apart from the rare R-rated room, owners and gamemasters have been very supportive of us bringing our kids. Special shout-out to Rabbit Hole Recreational Services in Loveland, CO, which offers an add-on where they will hide a stuffed animal somewhere in the room that your kid gets to keep!

*”Apple Orchard Moment” is a substitute term for the real one, which we can’t tell you because it’s a spoiler.

Which kids aren’t a good fit for escape rooms? 

We will admit, escape rooms aren’t necessarily great for EVERY kid. We might hold off in these instances:

Toddlers and preschoolers are usually a bad match because they require too much attention. You want to be able to enjoy the puzzles, not be constantly preoccupied with whether your kid has a key in their mouth. Also toddlers are often very sticky.

Some kids see a glued-shut prop book and just can’t rest until they rip it open. Those kids are not a good fit.

Some kids, like some adults, just might not have the right personality to enjoy an escape room. Examples would be: kids who hate puzzles; kids who need predictable routines; kids who struggle with impatience; and kids who struggle with surprises.

The one big question

If you’re still on the fence, the one big question to ask is: “What are the chances I’ll have to take this kid and leave the room?”

It might not be a problem to pop out with a kid to the bathroom, but if they decide they’re done with the room, guess what? You are too.

Escape rooms, a life

We (Peter & Emily) did our first room in 2017 on a rainy afternoon while on vacation in Colorado: Finder’s Keepers at the Frisco Escape Room. Our kids were nine and five at the time. The owners not only welcomed our kids but showed us a desk (the setting was a schoolhouse) where our 5-year-old could sit and hang out if he didn’t want to play. We dove into the puzzles with our fourth-grader while our youngest chilled with an iPad.

We loved the game so much we played their other two rooms over the course of the week. By the third, the five-year-old was putting down the iPad to come look at the puzzles with us.

We were hooked, and by age 6, our youngest was completely engaged. He wasn’t always able to solve puzzles, but he was very proud of his ability to predict where hidden doors would open. By age nine, he was sometimes the first one of us to crack a puzzle, and this spring he asked for an escape room for his 11th birthday party.

Escape rooms have become our family’s favorite group activity, and we hope you and the kids in your life might feel the same!

If we’ve convinced you and now you’re ready to escape with your family, keep an eye out for our next article, which will discuss some things you can do to make sure the kids solving with you have a terrific time!